


This Love Came Back to Me

by mackenziemchale



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Canon Divergence, F/M, Mention of Nina, Post 2x01, Sprinkled in bits of canon bc why not, fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29663424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackenziemchale/pseuds/mackenziemchale
Summary: “So… yeah, definitely, if Ben Furusho had landed in the pool instead of on the pavement we wouldn’t be talking right now,” Mac pauses for a beat before she continues, “and Will wouldn’t be standing out in the hallway.” Another quick pause as she looks to Rebecca, “he’s there right?”
Relationships: Will McAvoy/MacKenzie McHale
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	This Love Came Back to Me

**Author's Note:**

> As it says in the tags, this is set after 2x01 and is a divergence of canon. But, I sprinkled in some things from canon because I just couldn’t resist. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy ❤️

“So… yeah, definitely, if Ben Furusho had landed in the pool instead of on the pavement we wouldn’t be talking right now,” Mac pauses for a beat before she continues, “and Will wouldn’t be standing out in the hallway.” Another quick pause as she looks to Rebecca, “he’s there right?”

Rebecca only gives a nod, not saying anything in return. 

She nods and gives a half chuckle before looking down at the table again, “it’s because I’m in here,” she starts in a soft tone. Of course he was out there. Maybe when she first came back into his life, Mac would be surprised learning this. But now, after a year and how their relationship has flourished into this friendship but somehow more without the romance, she wouldn’t expect anything less. 

Tilting her head, Mac looks back up at Rebecca across the table as she continues, “he’s worried he got me in trouble and not the other way around. And you gotta admit for a guy who lives to be liked by the audience, he lets us put his life in danger a lot.”

Mac shifts her gaze again, “when I was little, I asked my uncle how much a lawyer costs.” Looking back to Rebecca she carries on, “he said if it’s bad, 300 pounds. If it’s really bad, 400 pounds. And if it's really bad and you’re guilty…” she trails off, “how much do you cost?”

“1500 and hour,” Rebecca replies.

Mac raises her brows with a quiet laugh and nods as she gently bites down on her bottom lip, knowing just how fucked they all were. 

“It’s after midnight, are you okay?” Rebecca asks.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s start from the beginning.” Rebecca’s attention shifts to one of the men with her, “can you grab some more coffee? We ran out a while ago.” 

Mac watches for a moment as the lawyers all stretch out, exhausted from the long night they’ve all had. 

“State your full name and current occupation, please,” Rebecca states.

“Mackenzie Morgan McHale. I’m the executive producer of News Night with Will McAvoy.”

“And when did you start this job?”

Mac can’t shift her attention to the lawyer leaving the room, but she does for a brief second catch a glimpse of Will out of the corner of her eye. She wasn’t surprised that he was there and that he planned to stay there until she was done, but truth be told she wasn’t entirely sure how it made her feel.

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It’s well after one in the morning when Mac steps out of the conference room, the last to leave having let Rebecca and her team go first. Her eyes meet Will’s the second she comes out of the room and she can see the worry painted on his face that he’s been letting consume him for who knows who long. 

But her eyes quickly catch Maggie, who’d been there for the same amount of time as Will had before he can get up and get a word out. She takes a few steps over to Maggie and kneels down next to her. Maggie was fast asleep on her side with her hands under her head, acting as a pillow. 

“Maggie…” Mackenzie says softly and gently starts to shake her shoulder. 

She had to admit, she was surprised to see Maggie here. It wasn’t as if she had any blame for this, she only did what she was told and Mac couldn’t hold that against her. 

It takes a minute but Maggie finally wakes up groggy and slightly confused at first, “Mac?” But it only takes her a few seconds before she realizes where she is, “are they done grilling you?”

Mac nods, “yeah, why don’t we get you to the lobby and get you into a cab so you can get home okay?”

She only nods and with Mac’s helps, gets up off the floor. Mac keeps an arm around Maggie and turns back to Will, who was still sitting against the wall watching as Mac’s motherly instincts kicked in with Maggie. “You stay here,” she demands, her voice slightly sharp as she says that. 

Will just nods in return, it wasn’t like he’d be getting up quickly anyway, not with his knees.

Mac turns back and walks with Maggie, who was still waking up, and helps her make way out the elevator. 

Ten minutes later, Mac finally arrives outside of the conference room where Will was now standing. She crosses her arms for a moment as she looks at him, still unsure where her feelings about this lied. 

“You wanna go get some drinks?” He suggests.

She shifts in her stance as she takes a moment to consider, then shrugs, “sure, it’s not like I was going to get more than an hour of sleep tonight anyway.” Unfortunately that wasn’t sarcasm, there were still nights where she could only get a few hours of sleep at a time.

Will nods and follows as she begins walking back toward the elevators, nervous about how their little outing was going to go. 

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They sit at a corner at the bar alone when they arrive at Hang Chews. The bar was moderately packed for 1am which thankfully meant they could find a spot where people weren’t right on top of them listening to their conversations.

Mac sits quietly next to Will and sips on her rum and diet coke. Neither had said much to each other since leaving the AWM building and had kept their conversations short since they arrived at the bar ten minutes ago. It was unlike them. Ever since Mac came back into his life they spent every night talking on the phone. Well, almost every night. Whenever she started dating Wade the calls became less frequent and even more so after Will found out about him. But after their breakup, and especially after the hug they shared on Valentine’s Day, their calls picked up again. They were even more frequent than before and they’d grown even closer, telling each other almost everything on their minds. Just like they had when they were dating. 

When Mac found out Will was dating Nina she’d felt like she’d been punched in the gut while simultaneously being stabbed in the chest. Out of all the women he could’ve dated, the last she expected was Nina. Especially after everything she’d done to him and to Mackenzie herself. Their phone calls had been reduced twice a week, sometimes less, sometimes more depending on whether or not he was with Nina. When they finally broke up, Mac felt a relief like no other come over her. 

But, now this left them where they’d been before two relationships got in the way. This limbo of being friends, but definitely not just friends because she knows that the way he looks at her isn’t how he looks at anyone else. That he doesn’t call anyone but her every night. He sure as hell wouldn’t wait outside a conference room for hours for just anyone. Yet, they still weren’t back together. He was still holding on to her cheating on him and she couldn’t blame him, but she didn’t know how else to prove to him that she wasn’t going anywhere and that it was never going to happen again. 

“Can I ask you something?” Mac asks after taking another sip of her half full glass. 

Will shrugs, “sure.”

“Why did you stay outside the conference room all night waiting for me?”

He doesn’t answer at first and she can see the gears shifting in his brain to come up with anything but the truth. He lands on that a few seconds later, “I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t in some sort of trouble with this Genoa thing.”

Mac narrows her eyes at him, “bullshit.”

“I’m being honest,” Will retorts instantly.

“I know you’re lying to me just like you’ve been lying to me since May of last year about what you said on that voicemail, because I know you remember. Why did you stay?” She wasn’t going to back down, she was going to pull a real answer out of him if it meant fighting tooth and nail to get to it. 

“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say to you. I told you I stayed because I wanted to be sure you weren’t in trouble.”

“I want you to drop the bullshit and give me an actual answer about this, Will. Because you and I both know you’d rather walk on nails than do that for anyone else.” The annoyance was beginning to rise in her voice and she wasn’t holding back because frankly, she was tired of this limbo. 

“Mac…”

“Give me a damn answer!” Mac exclaims, drawing a few people’s attention from the close proximity around them.

“Okay, okay,” he grabs her drink from her hand and sets it down before standing up, “can we do this out of the earshot of random people?” 

Mac allows him to pull her away from the crowd of people, toward a quieter part of the bar that even less people were at. As soon as they’re further away from everyone, she steps in front of him and crosses her arms, waiting for an answer.

Will looks at her for a moment then shrugs, “I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say.”

She huffs and shifts her stance slightly, “I want you to pretend for just a few minutes that you’re not mad at me for what I did. Because you’ve been stringing me along for the past nearly three years now and it’s been almost six years and you still haven’t forgiven me.” Her voice was thick with a mixture of annoyance and anger, fed up with the way he’d been treating her.

“You and everybody else are absolutely flabbergasted that it’s been six years and I still haven’t forgiven you.” He was starting to get fired up too, because for him moving on wasn’t as easy as it seemed to be for everyone else. “For four months….” Will pauses for a moment because even thinking about it sent a mix of anger and sadness through him. He keeps his composure though, remembering they were in public, “four months, you were sleeping with your ex-boyfriend while we were together. It’s not just something I can get over.”

“And yet everyday you go through an array of emotions of how you feel about me. One minute I’m your best fucking friend and you’re talking on the phone with me at three in the morning about work, about life, anything. And the next minute you’re dating someone like Nina fucking Howard. I mean what the hell was that Will?”

He doesn’t say anything in return, he just watches as she starts to make it to her boiling point. 

“Nina Howard. I mean god, you could’ve chosen anyone in the entirety of Manhattan and you chose her. She tried to ruin your reputation! Your career! And you went as far as paying her off so she wouldn’t write a story about me and then what? You turn around and start dating her? I mean what the fuck!” She throws her hands up in the air as she exclaims the last part. Mac’s face had filled with red by now, she’d had it. She loved Will, but she couldn’t take this any longer.

And he still hadn’t said anything, because he knew he was in the wrong with that but wasn’t sure he had the guts to admit it.

There’s silence for a few moments before she says, “and it’s not just her. You’ve made it your mission to show me how much I fucked up and that it doesn’t matter what I do to try and fix things. Well guess what? Your plan succeeded.”

Mac begins to walk toward him to go around him and leave him standing there in his guilt, but she stops just before she leaves. “I brutally hurt you, that’s a fact and facts don’t change. But in my lifetime… I’ve never done it intentionally.”

That was the final nail in the coffin. She glances at his face, that was clearly written with guilt and momentarily feels bad, but all of it had to be said. She then walks past him and keeps her composure strong as she leaves Hang Chews.

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Mac had only drunk a fraction of her rum and diet coke while at Hang Chews and if she thought she needed a drink or two after the night she had being interrogated by Rebecca, that was quickly beaten by the time she spent with Will after. Now she was drinking straight liquor, nothing light was going to get her through the rest of the night. It was already 2am, and she didn’t see herself getting sleep anytime soon.

She sips her vodka martini, which was more vodka than anything else, and sighs as she watches some random sitcom that was playing on NBC. She was only half paying attention as she played the argument she had with Will over in her mind. Mac did feel somewhat bad, as she had when she saw the look on his face. She didn’t want to completely ruin their relationship, but at some point the limbo they’d been in had to end. He needed to make up his mind about what he wanted and figure out if he could actually forgive her or not. 

And it was for the best. From now on at least Mac would know if there was  _ anything _ left or if their relationship was a lost cause. She’d have to get used to only having a work relationship with him, because even since they started working together they’d been closer than any anchor and EP she’d seen. It wasn’t like Don and Eillot were on the phone every night. Sure, they were friends but there was a distinct line. That line with her and Will was smudged to all hell. It was practically gone at this point. 

If that argument with Will meant that from now on they were only going to have a working relationship she could adjust. It would take time and more willpower than she felt she had, but she’d make it work. She had to because there was no way she was going to let anyone else be his EP. The three years without her were clear no one else could do the job.

While Mac is sitting on her couch, sipping on the martini and half paying attention to the sitcom on the tv in front of her, a loud knock comes at her door, pulling her out of her daze.

She groans, “I didn’t order any pizza! It was the neighbors!” Her first assumption was the pizza guy had the wrong place again. He’d done it for the past two nights in a row and at this point it was becoming annoying. 

The knock comes again and Mac groans again. Instead of straining her voice to shout, she sets down her glass and sighs as she makes her way to the door. “I said I didn’t order any—” she cuts herself off as she opens the door to not a pizza guy but Will standing on the other side of the door. 

“Will…” she had to admit, she was surprised to see him.

“Mackenzie… Can I come in?”

“You know, it’s taking everything in me not to slam this door in your face right now,” she replies and purses her lips together. 

“I know. I know and I deserve it, but can I come in so we can talk? If you’re not satisfied when we’re done then you can kick me out.”

Mac looks down at the floor and then back up at his face, he was still wearing the same guilt ridden look but it was also mixed with apologetic. Her own face softens as she lets go of her immediate annoyance that came to her when she saw him. “Okay.” She then opens her door and steps back, allowing him in.

The air between them as they sat across from each other was heavy with awkwardness and it was unlike them. Had this been any other night, they’d be enjoying some alcohol while chatting up a storm about anything and everything. But it wasn’t any other night, tonight was the night they finally left the limbo by either getting back together or reducing their relationship to strictly professional.

“You’re right,” Will starts.

“About what?” 

He shifts and lets out a sigh as he moves slightly closer to her, but still leaving a rather large gap of space. “All of it. Everything I’ve done to hurt you in return for what you did to me was intentional. I thought I had to pay you back and that it would make me feel better, but it didn’t…” Will watches as she shifts her gaze to the floor, trying to cover that she was upset by his admission. “I don’t like hurting you. Dating Nina was stupid and you’re right, to go from getting her to drop the story on you only to turn around and start dating her… it was wrong. I know I hurt you and I’m sorry, for everything, not just her.”

Will clears his throat and before he can let too much silence follow his words, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the velvet box that’s been sitting in a drawer in his office for the past year. The box is in his hand facing away from her, so she doesn’t see it as he pulls it out. Will then gets off the couch and holds in every groan that automatically tries to come out as he gets down on his better knee. God he’s gonna regret that later.

The time it takes for him to get from the couch to the floor is quicker than it seems to him and Mac’s eyes widen as she watches him open the familiar ring box. “What the hell are you—”

‘I realized,” he cuts her off, “I realized much later than I should’ve that I’ve been, um,” he says as he takes out the ring and places the box aside. “That I’ve been standing in the way of my own happiness. You see, I um, I wasn’t waiting outside of the conference room just because I was worried about you. I… I was, but it’s because I care so much about you.” He swallows hard, “and I-I didn’t return the ring.” He then shakily holds it up to her, and it’s clear that he’s more nervous than she’s ever seen him. Will of all people is never one to be nervous, let alone stumble on his words, but his heart was practically beating out of his chest. He lets out the breath he’d been holding and finishes his sentence, “because I’m in love with you.”

All Mac could do was look at him with her mouth slightly agape and her eyes wide, because this was the last thing she expected. “What did you say?” Seem to be the only words she can string together

“I said that I’m in love with you and I’m- I’m asking you to marry me because there’s no one else in the world- no. I’m just gonna stick with I'm in love with you and will you marry me?”

And she still hadn’t come down from her shock, because she doesn’t give him an answer right away.

Will’s nerves spike at that and he swallows hard, hoping the words he’s about to say come together in a coherent sentence. “And I really think you should, I think you should say yes.” He takes another breath and powers through the last thing he wanted to say, “but, no matter what you say I’m gonna be in love with you for the rest of my life there’s no way out of that, that’s just a physical law of the universe. You own me. No matter what you say—”

This time it’s Mac cutting him off, “yes,” she says softly.

He stops his rambling at her yes and looks at her with disbelief that after everything she was still willing to marry him. After a long pause he asks, “you’re saying yes?”

And she smiles then laughs, “yes you idiot.”

Will lets out another sigh of relief, “thank god.” 

Mac scoots a little closer toward the edge of the couch and pulls him up toward her, bringing his lips to hers. They kiss slowly for a few moments before she pulls back and says with a cheeky smile on her face, “took you long enough.”

“Really? That’s what you’re—”

She quickly shakes her head, “shut it.” And she was pulling him by his shirt into a longer, more passionate kiss.

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Will rolls over in Mac’s bed and squints at the clock on her side to read that it was 5:30am. They’d fallen asleep somewhere around 3am, so he’d only gotten a couple hours so far, but something had woken him up. That’s when he realizes that Mac wasn’t in bed with him. 

Rubbing his eyes, Will pulls himself out of bed and toward the door of her bedroom, assuming she had to be in the living room or kitchen. And he was right, when he steps out of her room and takes a few steps into the living room, he finds her standing by the window, watching the city continue on bustling.

He slowly walks over to her and tiredly greets her with his voice first so not to scare her, “so… this is how you spend your nights?” he asks and follows those words by putting an arm around her. 

Mac’s heart jumps a little when she hears his voice but it starts to settle as she realizes it’s just Will and when he puts an arm around her. She then shrugs, “sometimes, I’m usually in my bed though,” she turns toward him as she speaks and puts her arm around him, “which is where you should be.”

“No no, if you’re gonna be awake, I wanna be up with you,” Will protests. He quickly follows that up with, “well at least for tonight anyway. I have to get  _ some _ sleep before I end another broadcast by telling everyone thank you for washing us and that I’m Terry Smith and Will McAvoy is coming up with The Capitol Report in Washington.”

She laughs, “yeah that was pretty bad.”

They stay standing together by the window, it being the only thing bringing some light into the dark room. Will traces a few fingers along her side, “tell me what’s on your mind.”

Mac shakes her head, “too many things.”

“Okay, pick the one that’s at the top of the list or close,” he insists. 

She takes a few moments to consider, looking down at the floor then back at him when she’s made up her mind. “Just that I’m sorry for everything I did to you too. We don’t have to talk about it all now, but I need you to know that I’m sorry for the pain I caused you.”

It’s hard to see in the dark, but the slight light that was in the room helped Mac in seeing Will’s face soften as she finished saying that. It’s the first time she’s seen him not immediately get mad or upset about what she’d done.

He nods, “I know.” And it takes him a few seconds to get the next words out only because he’d hadn’t said them out loud yet and had only just recently admitted it to himself, “I forgive you.”

A large feeling of relief goes through her when she hears those words and she tries to hold it back but finds it difficult as her bottom lip starts to quiver. Not out of sadness, not at all. It was hard to hold back her emotions because she’d convinced herself she was never going to hear those words from him.

“You alright?” 

Mac nods, “yeah, sorry just,” she sniffles and quickly wipes away the tears that have escaped. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that.”

Will brushes back a few strands of hair that have fallen in front of her face and nods, “I know, but it’s true. I do, I forgive you.”

Her watery eyes meet his again and she sniffles, “you don’t know how happy I am to hear that.”

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Sleep wasn’t his best friend tonight because around 8:45am Will was awake again, but this time when he looks over at the other side of the bed, Mac was still there. She was still fast asleep, her hair sprawled out all over the pillow as she slept snuggled into it.

He smiles and leans over, pressing a kiss to her temple before he slides out of bed, grabbing his phone on the way out. Tiptoeing out of her room, Will pulls up his BlackBerry and gives Charlie a call.

“Hello?” Millie’s voice comes through.

“It’s Will, can you put me through to Charlie?”

“Sure thing.”

A moment later he’s connected to Charlie who greets him with a good morning.

“Good morning to you too, Charlie,” he says as softly as he can so not to wake Mac.

“You sound like you just woke up.”

“Observant as ever. Look, I was calling to let you know that Mackenzie and I won’t be coming in today.” He turns and glances through the cracked door at Mac still sleeping as he says that and another smile comes to his face. 

“Okay,” but that’s quickly followed by another comment as Charlie processes what Will had said, “wait it sounded like you said you  _ and _ Mac won’t be coming in today.”

“That is what I said.” He turns away from the door and takes a few steps away, afraid he might disturb her sleep. 

“So Mac’s with you?”

“Yep.”

Charlie was observant but it takes another few seconds for him to realize what that meant, “well finally!” he exclaims with a laugh.

Will stifles a laugh in return, “I know. Can you get Elliot or Sloan to fill in for me and Don for her?” 

“Of course, I’m on it.”

Will can practically hear the smile that was on Charlie’s face, he’d been rooting for the two of them to get their shit together from the start. He smiles again and looks down at the floor, “great, thank you.”

“No problem,” he pauses for a moment then says, “and Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Take good care of her,” Charlie insists, his fatherly instincts setting in nearly instantly.

He nods, “don’t worry, I will.”

Will was back in bed just a few minutes after hanging up with Charlie and when he settles into the mattress, he’s greeted with her weary voice, “who was that?”

Damn. She did wake up. He scoots over in bed and shakes his head, “just Charlie, don’t worry about it, just go back to sleep.”

Mac hums softly, her eyes half open as she faces him. She was half awake and seconds from falling back asleep so she opens her arms, “come… warmth.”

He quietly chuckles and obeys her order, scooting all the way over to her and into her arms. Wrapping his own around her, he makes sure she’s securely tucked into his embrace so she was as warm as she possibly could be. She was out within seconds and he could tell from the way her breathing evened out. Will tilts his head down and presses a kiss to her soft brunette locks, whispering quietly that he loved her before closing his eyes again.

**Author's Note:**

> You know, as much as I adore canon I think I’m a bit of a sucker for these stories where Will & Mac get together sooner than election night. It’s just nice to think about how they would’ve handled things if they were together rather than fighting 85% the time.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts if you have any in the comments, or just if you enjoyed the story. Feel free to leave a kudos as well. Both are always appreciated.
> 
> Until next time ❤️


End file.
